Senators & Penguins Make AHL Blockbuster

There was a blockbuster deal today between the Senators and Penguins...The Belleville Senators and the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins, that is. In a five-player deal, the Senators sent Ben Sexton, Macoy Erkamps, and Ryan Scarfo to the Penguins for Stefan Elliott, old friend Tobias Lindberg, and future considerations:

The @Senators have acquired Stefan Elliott and Tobias Lindberg from the @penguins in exchange for Ben Sexton and Macoy Erkamps.

It feels like Ottawa makes more of these big AHL deals than any other team, and it obviously doesn't mean very much for either NHL club moving forward. For the AHL Belleville team though, it looks like they improved with this trade.

Sexton, 27, had 9 assists in 17 games, and was a regular in the top-six. His career high in points in the AHL is 31 in 54 games, although he was impressive last season with 21 points in 30 games in Belleville. He actually played two games last season in Ottawa, although he's essentially organizational filler. Erkamps, 23, was considered more of a prospect, and when he was signed in 2016, he was coming off of a phenomenal 71 point season in the WHL. In 2+ seasons since signing with the organization, the defenseman has only 6 points in 57 games, and has actually played more games (81) in the ECHL than the AHL. He was intriguing at one point, but he never took that next step.

Ryan Scarfo, 24, has played 16 games between Belleville and Brampton this season, with only two points to show for his efforts. I bet the "future considerations" coming the other way in exchange for him is a case of beers for the team. As for the players they acquired, how could you forget about Tobias Lindberg? In the 2014-15 season, Ottawa fans were all over him, as he won the Memorial Cup with the Oshawa Generals and looked like an exciting prospect in a bad system. A year later, he was involved in the Dion Phaneuf trade that sent him to Toronto, and it looked like that might come back to haunt them.

The 23-year-old has bounced from Toronto to Las Vegas, to Pittsburgh, and now back to Ottawa, and has only appeared in six games in the NHL with the Maple Leafs in 2015-16. His best season in the AHL was actually his rookie year where he scored 34 points in 56 games, and since then he has struggled. He's back with the Senators organization now, and he is essentially a Sexton replacement on the right side (despite shooting left). He doesn't have any prospect pedigree anymore, but he can contribute in Belleville.

Stefan Elliott, 27, is a former 2nd round pick by the Colorado Avalanche and a "good Vancouver boy" who has bounced around since leaving the Avalanche in 2015. He has spent time with Arizona and Nashville, plus the previous two seasons he played in the KHL and SHL. He has 8 points in 20 games with Wilkes-Barre/Scranton so far, and he gives Belleville more depth on the blueline with an established player. The BSens were able to add Elliott by basically only sacrificing Erkamps and Scarfo, who weren't contributing much of anything anyway. And then Sexton for Lindberg is essentially a wash, but Lindberg is younger and probably slightly better.

It's likely that I've written too much on an insignificant AHL trade, but I find these sorts of deals interesting. The BSens might not be an amazing team this year, but they are looking much more respectable than last season, and the addition of Lindberg and Elliott will help in that regard.

Although you know what is the only thing that matters in this trade? It's the fact that the Senators gave up players with these names: Macoy Erkamps, Ryan Scarfo, and Ben Sexton. Unless they are getting Rob Klinkhammer, Cal Clutterbuck, and Grant Clitsome in return, it has to automatically be a lost trade due to the name value going out of the organization. So forget everything I said earlier about it being a good deal...